Chamber Film Reviews: Stanley Kubrick vs. David Lynch vs. Quentin Tarantino (Chamber Film Reviews) (ePub)

A sample:

Round 8 of 10

The Shining - Two Hour European Cut (1980)
The sets look great and they were filmed really well with all those brilliant steadicam shots. The editing of how scenes end was often very clever with sudden title cards or unexpected end points for scenes. You can see a lot of thinking has gone into the film. The acting was a bit over the top but it was all good with Nicholson giving a great performance full of derangement. I particularly liked his tendency to use silly voices. A lot of the dialogue was funny and full of nasty tension. The visuals, the tight to the point script and the big acting performances have an accumulative impact and by about the hour point the film was really cooking. The ending was slightly underwhelming. Clever and correct, but not exactly exciting and satisfying. The pace was a little baggy in places, but overall I think the pacing was alright. Anyway, I felt Kubrick had a good, substantial story and didn't need to dilly-dally in an attempt to artificially bloat the running time. So I wasn't bothered by those individual scenes where things dragged a little (the redrum scene for example springs to mind as being too long). It's a very strong, powerful film with great sets, camerawork, acting and writing. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected.


The Straight Story (1999)
It was alright. There are strong stretches in it, particularly in the middle, but there are also boring stretches. I expected nothing much from the climax, but even so it was a little weak and indifferent at the end. Bits of it were quietly affecting, such as the World War 2 sniper story. The direction was very restrained and controlled with minimal editing so the shots (often on cranes) were held for longer than average lengths of time. There wasn't much of a story - I knew that going in so I didn't expect anything resembling thrills or dramatic content. The one joke idea is a little overstretched towards the end. The film works well enough. I first tried to watch this over a decade ago and gave up at the 25 minute point when he buys the grabber in the shop as I hated it.


Death Proof - Full length Version (2007)
The first half hour is iffy. It could be completely deleted and it wouldn't do the film any harm. The movie really only truly begins when Kurt Russell asks for a lap dance via the radio poem. The quality of the film spikes upwards from that moment on. The problem with the first batch of girls is that they don't have anything interesting to say. Their overlong dialogue scenes were far from gripping. I didn't mind the endless talking too much, and I didn't find it to be particularly boring. The bar room section is far too long and indulgent. I feel Tarantino decided in advance before writing it that he wanted it to be a long, long extended section. Unfortunately he couldn't dredge up enough proper content to fill it and has instead bloated it with unneeded material. The creepy treatment of the girl Kurt picked up in the bar, and the car crash in the middle, are excellent and very well done moments. It's got to be said, the good bits are very good. The second batch of girls are much more interesting and everything they have to say is significantly more entertaining and enjoyable. None of their many and extensive talking scenes felt too excessive or overly indulgent. The final chase was good, if a little overlong. There's only so many shots of cars driving fast on roads you can watch before you've seen it all. The climax itself is weirdly abrupt and disappointing. I have the distinct feeling that a last comic scene of the women returning the beat up car to the owner is missing. It's an overly talkative movie and its second half [...ran out of space.]